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Tom Keegan: Kansas football coach David Beaty safe for now

Morgantown, W.V. — In the wake of Saturday’s closer-than-expected, 38-22 loss to West Virginia, first-year Kansas athletic director Jeff Long accommodated my request for an interview about his impressions of the football program at the halfway point of the season.

“You know, we got a couple of wins there, won back-to-back games, which is something we hadn’t done here in a while,” Long said. “We’re halfway through and we made it to the bye week. We’ll get some people back healthy and then we’ll see how we finish the second half of the season.”

Those didn’t sound like the words of an AD director ready to make a midseason coaching change.

“David’s our football coach,” Long said. “I’m not going to comment game by game. He’s our football coach.”

Kansas reached the halfway point with a 2-4 record and an argument can be made that, given the road opponent, No. 9 West Virginia, Saturday was KU’s best performance in a Big 12 game since Beaty’s 24-21 home overtime victory vs. Texas in 2016.

Even at that, Beaty left himself open to questioning about his curious quarterback shuffle. Coming off the best performance by a KU QB in Big 12 play in a long while vs. Oklahoma State, Carter Stanley received a quick hook Saturday. When first removed, he had thrown four passes, one for a completion for negative-4 yards. He also fumbled on a botched fourth-down play, and threw a pick.

“That’s the good thing about having more than one,” Beaty said. “When a guy isn’t playing well, you have another one.”

The easy counter to that, of course, is that not settling on one quarterback prevents them all from developing confidence, undermining their ability to lead.

At season's end, results will determine Beaty’s fate, but since the players haven’t quit on him, his 5-37 overall record and 1-29 Big 12 mark have not put him in imminent danger.

“They’re working hard and you can see in some areas we’re getting better and in some areas we’re still challenged,” Long said. “There were some good things in this game today. We fought. I have been impressed with the way our players fight. They stay in the game. They keep playing hard. In some cases, they’re overmatched, but they keep playing. They keep playing hard.”

In all three Big 12 games, Kansas has performed better in the second half than the first. Composite first-half score: opponents 68, Kansas 14; composite second-half score: opponents 44, Kansas 43.

All signs point to Long giving Beaty a chance to prove he can make a similar improvement from the first half of the season to the second.

No kidding they're graduating, and that isn't Beaty's fault. And what are you talking about when you say horrible recruiting? Do even understand how it works? 25 seniors are graduating, you can only recruit a maximum of 25 scholarship players each year. That's the rules, and Beaty didn't set them. No matter what he does, you aren't going to like him. Politics. You just hate him.

Beaty is 5 and 37, that is why people do not like him as a football coach. He is in his fourth year of coaching and his third was worse than his second. His fourth year is shaping up to be tied as his best season with 2 wins (yes 2 more than I expected. Maybe he'll win another 1, but some of us don't see it getting better.

If you follow recruiting, David Beaty has recruited very few from Texas, which was one of the key reasons he was asked to join KU. He has used blue shirts, which actually does not allow us to recruit 25 next year ( I believe 4 blue shirts were used this year). He has 2 yes only 2 recruits this year orally committed. That is 6 less than the next Big XII school.

Yeah that is a little harsh measuring a coach by wins/losses. We should use something like the "PLAY HARD CHART!" that Bruce Weber uses at KSU. After all if you go by that chart KSU has beaten KU in basketball two years in a row now. give me a break....

Let's go by incentives that Beaty has, he has had two incentive based contracts and has only earned $150k, remember although the base salary was $800k in his initial contract, he could have tripled that. likewise this contract gives him money for a win even when it was a non-conference game.

Okay lets switch to recruiting, texas he hasn't been able to readily recruit, our numbers have significantly declined from there. I'll give him credit for Louisiana. Oh I would point out that he has two recruits this year, but that has changed, only 1 now and it is a 2 star running back.

Coaches for his staff, his first Offensive Coordinator became a "walk around guy", let's see a couple of special teams, line backer coaches, defensive back coaches, oh yes but we still have Bowen ranked in the bottom 120 all four years since he has returned.

You might say that the margins have been better this year then last year, but just remember how bad he set that bar at. I'd be curious what the margin of loss was for Gill, Weis and Beaty.

I know that it is rough to evaluate a coach on W and L but to tell you the truth, that is how coaches are evaluated and he has the worst record of any KU football coach ever. I know that is shallow, but it isn't getting better, even if you pretend it is.

Long has said before that he doesn’t like firing coaches mid season. It appears it’ll take more than what we’ve seen to do it. But these next few home games should be interesting in the way of fan attendance. I project 5-10,000 each game.

Read John Steinbeck;s Quote "I think any young man, or any man, who isn't angry at one time or another is a waste of time. No, no, anger is a symbol of thought, and evaluation, and reaction. Without it , what have we got? I am tired of non-angry people."

Does that include both of the recruits for 2019? I think there was a lot of fervor for the Turner Gill recruiting as well..remember he always talked about speed, need more speed. Weis had some 5 star QBs and some other big names pierson comes to mind. I'm not saying Beaty didn't get some recruits, but he was so JUCO focused, that if there was any miss (which there has been) it doesn't improve the scholarship situation. If I recall he inherited 38 scholarship players. After the graduation of players, I believe the count someone else calculated was around 43. For four year, if we were suffering through 4 years of this to fix a problem, but 4 years later to be basically in the same place is an indicator he wasn't a good recruiter.

Not quite correct!<br><br>Beaty had only 28 players returning and only 39 scholarship players including incoming freshmen his first year. KU had 60 walk-ons his first year. THAT IS HOW BAD IT WAS!!!!!!<br><br>Here is a link to our current roster in 2018. https://www.ourlads.com/ncaa-football...<br><br>From my quick count we have 116 players on roster.:<br>30 Freshman, 20 Sophomores, 37 Juniors, 29 Seniors<br><br>About 30 are walk-ons. KU Juniors is the biggest class and the real talent is actually in the Sophomore and Freshman classes. With 18 scholarships to give in 2019 and looking at these numbers Beaty has our scholarship count much closer to where it needs to be today than when he took the job. In this department Beaty has been making progress and it's not quite as bad as what everyone is making it out to be for next year.

TK did do a nice breakdown of the scholarships in March (+/-), but the article seems to have disappeared. Many commenters will be negative, but the breakdown of the numbers in that article showed that with 6 JC recruits in the next class the program would be almost completely balanced and 80 (+/-) scholarship players. I do believe that was before we got several post-signing day commitments, and on the OL in particular.

That is a massively huge turn around, though many committed to having a negative perspective on anything related to the program - whether it is realistic or not.

Based on previous A.D. Long former choices as a Head Coach (at his previous employers), I choose to wait and see what he does after the 2018 season is completed. He's made some previous great hires. Unfortunately, the last 2 hires didn't work out so well for him. But, had a HC and a Secretary not had a consensual adventure between the two of them. I doubt A.D. Long would even be reviewing, and asked to comment about a Kansas Jayhawks Head Football Coach position right now. So for now, I'll cheer for the current Jayhawks Football team (as the 2018 commited football players deserve our patience and support).

Good point! This is the Strength of the KSU fanbase. They will support their team win or lose! KU tends to spoiled with the BB Team, and tend to support mostly when winning. I remember the Coaches that preceeded Coach Snyder, like Coach Vince Gibson, and Jim Dickey, they were great coaches. They tried desperately to energize their fan base with purple pride, and their great quarterback, Lynn Dickey. I hope the current AD, has ideas that will develop a 'Chicago Cubs' loyalty within the Fanbase.

Yeah, I really like the effort. Why the first half performance and second half differences? Are we not prepared going in or do opponents have a pipeline to our game planning? I have hesitated to bring this up but it has looked that way for too long. Someone is selling out or we are getting hacked. The second half performances prove it.

I'm trying to be patient with Long...I realize that I don't understand why GLB gave both Zenger and Beaty an extension, based on all results there was no reason. I understand our chancellor was put in a difficult position, but he waited too long to fire zenger, which caused Beaty to be the coach this year. Beaty has led the team to a horrible start again, with a high in expectations around 3-4 wins, again likely not even to meet expectations. We have Beaty who thinks switching QBs means you have three good QBs that are interchangeable. Beaty keeps lowering everyone's expectations thinking that if he comes close to those, we will fee good about each other. I believe he inherited a poor team that finished 3-9 the previous year...he provided an 0-12 season with a loss against a FCS team that year. The following year, we were promised hope and had a win against a FCS team...everything was downhill. He beat Texas by some miracle (6 turnovers-the magic number for a win). This set our expectations with a new contract (undeserved) and a coach that talked about 6 wins as the third year when it was in his own words, the third year is when you can evaluate him. Well the evaluation happened...1-11 a win against an FCS team. That was what we all needed, but no Zenger couldn't hire a third coach and our chancellor couldn't fire Zenger until he realized we weren't going to build our stadium. All of sudden the AD was fired, and no one wants to evaluate the coach. If this was year 2 maybe I would understand it, but this is year 4 and we aren't any better than the team that Beaty inherited. Long. I know you are just being a good steward by working with the local media (which I do appreciate a lot), but you were not brought in to keep Beaty and he has done absolutely nothing to earn more time as a coach...we are at 5-37 and counting. Beaty is not getting better, we keep losing.

IMO, this is the story not being told.....Beaty and Zenger were given the extension to stop the bleeding. It was important to keep Beaty through this year to help with scholarship numbers and it was important to keep Beaty one more year to give a new AD a chance to make decisions. The current 2018 Senior Class is Beaty's first Freshman class that he did not recruit or were leftovers Beaty scrambled to find. In Beaty's first year KU had 39 scholarship players and 60 walk-ons. So after the 2018 class graduates KU will be rid of the "take any body" you can find players. So, this is the year to make a coaching change. <br><br>Currently, we have 37 Juniors and 20 Sophomores going into 2019. Some are able to red-shirt and stick around two years. By pushing back some of these players a year, the 2019 Senior Class and Junior Class numbers will not look as bad as everyone says. A good number of these players are likely to stick and provide a base for the next incoming coach to build upon.<br><br> Beaty did not have any base. Beaty didn't have squat when he came here. Beaty was hired to rebuild the roster, while getting a once in a life time chance at being a Power 5 HC. Beaty, made a calculated choice, a chance at HC and to make some decent money. KU also made a choice. Almost no good head coach wants a Power 5 job with the roster so depleted. Once you lose a Power 5 job as HC its hard to get another shot. So rather than pummel and embarrass a great KU Alum like Coach Bowen for four years we hired from outside with both sides knowing the risk. KU needed someone to get us by and build the roster to the point of better opportunity and at the same time giving someone a dream opportunity <br><br> Now, to simplify the scholarship situation. Every school gets 85 scholarships. That is only 21 scholarships per class plus 1. The max number of scholarships you can give away in a year is 25. This year Beaty blue-shirted players and KU only has 18 scholarships to give. That's only 3 less than average. When Beaty came to KU he had only 28 scholarship players at spring practice and only had 39 scholarship players in the fall and had to add 60 walk-ons. KU is no where near this low today. After this year's senior class leaves KU will have almost 50 players on scholarship at Spring practice in 2019 and by the fall will have almost 65 which is 25 more players than four years ago. That is more than a 150% improvement from Beaty's first year. So, while Beaty has had very little success on the field, IMO He has has accomplished rebuilding and improving the roster with some potential and he is not leaving us high and dry.

That was the largest pile of B.S. I've read on here in a while. It's year 4, quit making excuses. He sold out the last recruiting class to try and save his job, and screwed KU over in the process.

Don't make excuses for him taking the job. He wanted it badly. Zenger wanted him badly. They are the equivalent of the bandits in 101 Dalmatians, except they are both millionaires who get to spend 3 days a week at the country club for the rest of their lives.

And it was never, never, ever important to give Beaty one more year. By game two of year two 95% of KU football fans knew we had hired an imbecile, and he's proven us right over and over and over and (well, 30+ times) again. He's left a string of bizarre decisions, coaching hires, coaching departures, QB mishandling, my goodness, do we have to go down the list again? He got one more year and what did he do? He trashed the recruiting class. That's what you considered important?

He can't coach. He was over-confident coming in, he made a string of bad decisions, followed by worse ones and he's never recruited effectively.

He had no plan for building a roster. Knowing his job was on the line, he sold out the team for a quick fix recruiting strategy. He's done a horrible job of recruiting Texas. He has two commitments in the next class. And on, and on.

And don't give him credit for rebuilding a roster. Is it really that hard to find a kid to take a full-ride scholarship in football? Is the math really difficult inside the football offices? Is some special talent required? Because, if there is, he clearly doesn't have it.

As I posted earlier, I'll trust that Long has a reason and a plan. As the new AD, he deserves that. This hire will be the most important thing he ever does on this job. How he handles it will tell us all we need to know. Just as we all know that Beaty has got to go.

You really expect players to commit when the news pumped out for the program is an multiple series about replacement coaches.

BB players will comment and we all agree on the positive atmosphere created around the program positively influenced their commitment, but then scoff at the notion that negative press and comments could negatively influence commitments.

The coaches have their work cutout for them again this year. We've been playing from behind every year. This isn't really very different from years past.

That's because the facts don't back-up the opinions, unless the analysis doesn't go much deeper than W-L.

One of the items you left out, and IMO actually misrepresented a bit, was Beaty's salary as well as the entire coaching staff for the first couple years. I believe he was only getting $800k, and across the board the salaries were among the lowest in all of CFB. They have improved a lot in the last few years, and the improved performances show - if a person is willing to look with an open mind.

That's not to in any way imply that Coach is remotely close to perfect, but there was plenty of recognition to start that he was a work in progress just as much as the roster was.

How do you measure a coach's success at a program? Loses?In that case Beaty is extremely sucessful. But realistically, who will KU get at this point?

Let Beaty stay out his contract, bite the bullet, see if he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, and then make a decision.

How much lower can we go? Those loses show progress? Oh, dont forget to throw recruiting issues in there for Beaty.

I remember Mangino had a commitment from Geneo Grissom, then decommitted from KU at Mangino's firing. Oh, Grissom went to OU. Grissom was the kind of recruit KU needed on the D line. Oh well, Perkuns fired Mangino. BTW, Mangino also took us to bowls. Thats a measure of a coach. He also had 1 QB, Reesing. He put Meier at WR. Thats a coach making a decision and then showing success.

Whats Beaty doing? Please, I want some of the experts on this board to tell me how to measure his success. They let that loss to #9 slip, um I guess. But its progress.

Tell me exactly what Beaty is doing. We are losing games and now recruits. If we get someone else, we start over and back to square one.

Dont think theres a good ending at this point. Maybe we start winning. Maybe we beat OU, TCU, or TT. Hope is a good thing.

Not surprising at all. Big brother Bob isn't there to save his butt. Mike Stoops isn't a very good defensive coordinator. When Mike was fired by Arizona, Bob quickly brought Mike back and Brent Venables exited stage right. Venables made the best decision of his career, and has excelled at Clemson. While Big Game Bob decided to retire and Mike was left exosed for what kind of a coach he is. Riley made the right move for his program.

Although I see improvement it that last year we typically lost by four scores and this year it is down to two, we still remain not very competitive in b-12 play. It should get worse. Maybe K-State we have a shot. Iowa State is looking tough. I'd probably bet another year of no conference wins.

A charismatic coach is needed...a class guy...smart... tough...tireless recruiting staff....Bring in Gene Chizik and Tom Luginbill for recruiting and pay the recruiting staff mega bucks and have them in place so the recruits can attend the Villanova game on Dec 10 at the Phog...that is a dream I know...but if I was AD.......................